Analysing the Portuguese urban system from a quality of life viewpoint

Abstract

The idea of studying positive and negative features involved in city living is not new. Relevant works, as the classical “Where to live in Britain in 1988”, by Findlay et al., stressed the importance of several quality of life dimensions. In Portugal, a research team based in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minho developed in 1998-2000 a study on quality of life in the major eighteen Portuguese cities. Results of the evaluation models developed for the dimensions considered were integrated in a quality of life grand index and mapped through a GIS system. This paper presents the quality of life surfaces developed for Portugal. In particular, it explores the overlay of quality of life and population density surfaces, attempting to find out the relationship between both.